Renunciation and Longing
The Life of a Twentieth-Century Himalayan Buddhist Saint
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Renunciation and Longing
The Life of a Twentieth-Century Himalayan Buddhist Saint
Through the eventful life of a Himalayan Buddhist teacher, Khunu Lama, this study reimagines cultural continuity beyond the binary of traditional and modern.
In the early twentieth century, Khunu Lama journeyed across Tibet and India, meeting Buddhist masters while sometimes living, so his students say, on cold porridge and water. Yet this elusive wandering renunciant became a revered teacher of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. At Khunu Lama’s death in 1977, he was mourned by Himalayan nuns, Tibetan lamas, and American meditators alike. The many surviving stories about him reveal significant dimensions of Tibetan Buddhism, shedding new light on questions of religious affect and memory that reimagines cultural continuity beyond the binary of traditional and modern.
In Renunciation and Longing, Annabella Pitkin explores devotion, renunciation, and the teacher-student lineage relationship as resources for understanding Tibetan Buddhist approaches to modernity. By examining narrative accounts of the life of a remarkable twentieth-century Himalayan Buddhist and focusing on his remembered identity as a renunciant bodhisattva, Pitkin illuminates Tibetan and Himalayan practices of memory, affective connection, and mourning. Refuting long-standing caricatures of Tibetan Buddhist communities as unable to be modern because of their religious commitments, Pitkin shows instead how twentieth- and twenty-first-century Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist narrators have used themes of renunciation, devotion, and lineage as touchstones for negotiating loss and vitalizing continuity.
In the early twentieth century, Khunu Lama journeyed across Tibet and India, meeting Buddhist masters while sometimes living, so his students say, on cold porridge and water. Yet this elusive wandering renunciant became a revered teacher of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. At Khunu Lama’s death in 1977, he was mourned by Himalayan nuns, Tibetan lamas, and American meditators alike. The many surviving stories about him reveal significant dimensions of Tibetan Buddhism, shedding new light on questions of religious affect and memory that reimagines cultural continuity beyond the binary of traditional and modern.
In Renunciation and Longing, Annabella Pitkin explores devotion, renunciation, and the teacher-student lineage relationship as resources for understanding Tibetan Buddhist approaches to modernity. By examining narrative accounts of the life of a remarkable twentieth-century Himalayan Buddhist and focusing on his remembered identity as a renunciant bodhisattva, Pitkin illuminates Tibetan and Himalayan practices of memory, affective connection, and mourning. Refuting long-standing caricatures of Tibetan Buddhist communities as unable to be modern because of their religious commitments, Pitkin shows instead how twentieth- and twenty-first-century Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist narrators have used themes of renunciation, devotion, and lineage as touchstones for negotiating loss and vitalizing continuity.
280 pages | 7 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2022
History: Asian History
Religion: Religion and Society, South and East Asian Religions
Reviews
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Technical Note on Phonetic Transcription and Transliteration
Maps of Khunu Lama’s Travels
Chronology
Introduction Themes in the Life of a Twentieth-Century Himalayan Buddhist Renunciant
Chapter One “Like Water into Water”: Transmission Lineages in Tibetan Buddhism
Chapter Two “He abandoned his homeland for the sake of the Dharma”: Tibetan Buddhist Imaginaries of Home-Leaving and Renunciation
Chapter Three “Aim Your Dharma Practice at a Beggar’s Life”
Chapter Four Dislocation and Continuity
Chapter Five “With such devotion that tears cascade from your eyes”: Renunciation, Separation, and Guru Devotion
Chapter Six Death and Other Disruptions: Dying Like a Dog in the Wilderness
Epilogue
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Technical Note on Phonetic Transcription and Transliteration
Maps of Khunu Lama’s Travels
Chronology
Introduction Themes in the Life of a Twentieth-Century Himalayan Buddhist Renunciant
Chapter One “Like Water into Water”: Transmission Lineages in Tibetan Buddhism
Chapter Two “He abandoned his homeland for the sake of the Dharma”: Tibetan Buddhist Imaginaries of Home-Leaving and Renunciation
Chapter Three “Aim Your Dharma Practice at a Beggar’s Life”
Chapter Four Dislocation and Continuity
Chapter Five “With such devotion that tears cascade from your eyes”: Renunciation, Separation, and Guru Devotion
Chapter Six Death and Other Disruptions: Dying Like a Dog in the Wilderness
Epilogue
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index